研讨课题目：Themes of Urbanization

主持人简介：Flemming Christiansen (费立民), Professor, Institute of Sociology and Institute of East Asian Studies, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. PhD, Leiden University, The Netherlands (1990).

研讨课内容：This series of lectures/seminars introduces cross-cutting sociological thematic debates on contemporary urbanity and urbanization across the world. The global themes will form the basis for discussions of how they can help with an understanding of Chinese urbanization. Each session is structured as follows: I will first introduce main themes in lecture form, and we will then discuss the theme based on a text provided. I make several texts available for further reading; however, the discussion during each session will only require participants to read 10–15 pages in English.

We will explore basic themes of urban society that sociologists have pondered about during the last 100 or so years. The formation of the city of industrial modernity from the 19th century until the 1990s–2000s, and during the last 25 years the rapid expansion of megacities across the world, associated with new forms of political economy, technology, and social inequalities (as identified by among others Thomas Picketty and Guy Standing) indicate a shift that social scientists have difficulty to analyze and explain. Ulrich Beck and Zygmunt Bauman pointed at fundamental, qualitative shifts in social institutions, and others began to examine processes of globalization, but we have few concepts and methods available for forwardlooking research. I hope that discussing the main issues one after the other will be a useful brainstorm and exchange of experiences.

研讨课时间： 2016年5月18日-27日（周六、周日除外） 13:00-14:20

研讨课地点： 内蒙古大学南校区艺术楼三楼民族学与社会学学院会议室